Throatfeathers and Lilymoons
by TommyTopHat
Summary: Luna finds herself lying in a meadow where it is both night and day, with no recollection of how she got there. She thinks to herself of things, such as white feathers flooding from her throat. The intended feel for this fic is meant to be kind of dreamlike and oneiric, but I'm not sure if I succeeded in that. My first try, so forgive me if it's bad. One-shot.


Throatfeathers and Lilymoons

She laid herself down, in her slightly-too-large dress of cobweb-white lace, facing the sky, which was dark as ink-stained coal, with a lunar sliver suspended like an albino moth, suddenly halted mid-flight. Despite this, she knew that it was day, rather than night. The sun was out too, you see, though it managed to cast only the slightest amount of light. Luna found this odd, but did not question it. She found herself reminded of a poem from a Muggle book for children that Arthur Weasley had given her as a wedding present (he had predicted that it would interest her) but she could not remember its title. In fact, for some curious reason, Luna was finding it more and more difficult to recall things; she had not even the slightest idea how she had come to be here, in this beautiful meadow, with the lush, green, and dew-scattered grass tickling her bare arms in a manner that she did not at all consider to be unpleasant. Her hair was unkempt and tangled, just like the wild flowers that grew in this place. She discovered also that she was wearing a silken black top hat, but while she was sure it did not fit her properly, she was unable to discern whether it was too large or too small for her head. Not that it mattered much; it managed to stay on, regardless.

Everything seemed like a dream. Not only that, but she began to experience a synaesthesia of sorts, as the brush of plant life against the fabric of her dress and the contentedly manic buzzing of the bees turned to colours before her eyes, colours she could almost taste, like the ghost of the sensation, on the tip of her tongue. She drew out her wand and held it with outstretched, delicate arms and fumbling, awkward fingers up above her head, examining this old companion of sorts as if it had been reborn, like a phoenix, in the time that it had been out of her sight. Then she grasped it in her left hand, waved it (attempting to do so surely and with confidence, but not entirely succeeding) and whispered an incantation meant for the bees.

One thing she had always disliked- but not hated, for whenever she allowed herself to hate something, she ended up becoming frightened of herself, and of the potential this hatred possessed - about Hogwarts' methods of teaching was that you were expected to say all of your spells out loud. Luna had been experimenting with a more subdued, subtle type of spell casting, and while it worked, after some practise, it was still pretty difficult to get right and didn't always work properly. This time, luckily, she succeeded, and the honeybees made their way lazily towards her, finding themselves inscrutably attracted to Luna's presence in their meadow. Landing on her waifish figure, they caused her to laugh. Its sound was like tiny, fragile bells made of ice. The bees were not disturbed by her laughter; if anything, it appeared to have a calming effect upon the creatures.

Eventually, though, the spell wore off, and they left her. Their absence made her feel strangely cold. Looking up at the mere slice of the moon again, she realised that she would probably have to go soon, but she had no idea where she was, and so was unsure of how to get back home. Luna did not panic, however. In fact, sleep was beginning to slide over her eyes, ringed with shadows as a result of one too many insomniac nights. (As she grew older and matured, she still retained an innocence of sorts, but had also gained stronger feelings of anxiety and worry than she had known before.)

As her eyelids fluttered uncertainly, up and down, she thought she could see the moon descending, falling slowly in her direction. Luna wondered if, when it reached her, it would be large or small, and whether it was as sharp as it looked. She imagined it landing at her throat, slicing through the alabaster flesh to let out a stream of soft, downy-white feathers, pouring from it in waves until they had engulfed not just her, but everything, perhaps even the whole world.

Luna wondered if her blood really was rich and red. She had always pictured it thick and white as cream, and coursing

like throatfeathers through her veins.


End file.
